A farewell to arms

The last few weeks have passed in a confused flash of action, with the IPL (two hurried matches every day) and the world's biggest elections all running simultaneously. Meanwhile Bangalore was experiencing one of the most oppressive summers in recent times. The Lanka-Tamil war was dragging on endlessly. There was a gradual build-up of action at first, but it finally ended with a resounding bang. It must be said in favour of Velupillai Prabhakaran that he soldiered on courageously, though he dragged many others to a hell on earth with him.

The daily news is almost the same: man murders wife, dowy deaths, war in S-------, war in P----------, road accidents galore, subway collapses. Mutalik of theu00a0 pink lingerie seems to have sunk without a trace. Maybe he should try fighting real men of his own size. Or should he sportu00a0 saffron panties? Would it bring him better luck?
A total lack of restraint has characterised this election campaign. Virulent attacks and counterattacks with the exception, perhaps of Manmohan Singh and Priyanka Gandhi (it is my private belief that Priyanka's behind the scenes efficiency and total candid charm in interviews are among the major factor for Congress' success, rebuttingu00a0 Amar Singh's bumptious, boorishness). Nastiness. Nastiness. The formerly dignified Prakash Karat made most undignified diatribes against his opponents which rebounded on him disastrously.u00a0

Maybe he should play the Devil's Advocate with the same curling-lipped sneer. Karan Thapar does it as an act, or maybe his face cut is naturally like that. But Karat takes his own act seriously.u00a0u00a0 Well... being taken down a peg or two, plus a stint away from the limelight should do him some good.

And yet, meanwhile, nature carries on with its seasons in the most normal fashion. Leaves sprout, fall and get burnt. Dust turns to ashes. And 'Ash' turns to Cannes! Coffee blossoms blossom. Mango blossoms spring forth in their thousands.

This year the summer was fierce and seemed likely to be prolonged. But dust and heat were suddenly followed by afternoon storms and hailstones, all in a space of hours or minutes. That's Namma Bengalooru.

After dragging on for 25 years, the Srilankan-Tamil conflict ended not with a bang but a whimper (though at the end there was a bang in a camouflaged ambulance). Prabhakaran seemed to have disappeared once more leaving his pursuers clueless, but when the desperate megalomaniac made his last attempt to disappear, disappear he did in a big bang of gunpowder smoke and fire.

Ironically his death coincided with the onset of the southwest monsoon. It seemed like the accounts of the day of Jesus' death.

The sky turned ominously grey at noon. The monsoon had set in two weeks early. Between slashes of lightning and crashes of thunder the deluge set in as sheets of rain washed the sky and the dusty trees clean.

This is nature's typical way of rebuilding itself, every year. And so let us hope the same for the people who have been suffering for the last quarter of a century.